Abstract

Land availability is of crucial importance for China's development in the 21 century. Economic growth, urbanization, changes in life styles such diet changes, and population growth will influence both the demand for and the supply of land. In this study, an input-output model expanded by a set of land categories is developed to synthesize various scenarios of changes in the economy and society, and to evaluate their impact on land-use changes in China. The scenario analysis is conducted at both the national and regional levels and for the time horizon of over 30-years. The analysis aims to show how different development paths will influence the available land base as well as the inter-regional and international trade flows of primary products for China in the coming decades. To do this is a mixed model with supply-constraints for the major land-consuming sectors is used.

Given the moderate pace of technological progress, as commonly assumed in the literature, the resultant increases in final demands and sectoral outputs would drive the associated land requirements to exceed the then available land area. Scarcity of cultivated land, grassland, and forestland will be persistent. If the traditional policy of grain and food self-sufficiency were maintained intact, to keep the farmland requirement feasible, an annual growth rate of land-productivity of about 1.28 percent would be required, which is higher than what is usually expected for the next 30 years. In addition, faster technological advancement in the livestock sector will be necessary.